Commissioner’s Notes

We’re now through the “regular season” of our game and the playoffs begin next week. This was a wild week across CFB, with some really close games and some really insane games. We’ll take a look at the playoff scenarios, review the luck that led to the playoff bracket we have now, and take a look at Jacob’s no-good, terrible, very bad week.

Choke Job of the Week

This is a team effort. The award goes to Jacob’s entire roster, but specifically embodied by Tulane. While they were slight underdogs, nothing compares to a 50-point loss. That is the biggest loss of the year by far, and one of the biggest losses of all time. We had some really big losses, and Tulane was somehow still 3 touchdowns worse.

Games of the Week Preview

• Tuesday: Ohio @ Miami (OH), in-state MACtion between two pretty good MAC teams; Ohio is tied with Toledo for #1 at 7-2, with two teams close behind at 6-3, and they play each other in week 13, so these teams can’t afford a loss.

• Wednesday: Buffalo @ Ball State, another close MAC matchup; Buffalo is one of the aforementioned 6-3 teams and can’t afford a loss.

• Thursday: Memphis @ South Florida; Memphis is in the AAC 3-way tie at 7-2 for the playoffs.

• Friday: Florida State @ Pittsburgh, while not a great matchup, it’s significantly better than the blowouts.

All the Saturday games are flexed so they’re TBD at time of writing, but the estimated games of the time slot for Saturday:

• Utah @ Arizona, a ranked matchup, and Utah may be primed for a hangover after a big rivalry win, but they’re playing for a first-round playoff bye.

• Florida @ Kentucky; Kentucky ought to be on the outside looking in after getting blown out by the two playoff contenders on their schedule by a combined score of 79-23, so a loss here would officially close the book on them.

• Texas @ LSU; LSU is likewise eliminated but they could really tank Texas’s chances with a win.

• Tennessee @ Texas A&M; Tennessee was just on the outside of the playoffs before blowing out Kentucky, so they can’t afford another loss. TAMU is not an especially great team, but it’s a tough environment and possibly the toughest game remaining on Tennessee’s schedule.

Playoffs

We’re now in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs. For this round, the pod winners get byes so there are only 2 matchups (reminder: playoffs are based on PVP record, first tiebreaker is H2H, and second tiebreaker is margin in H2H games):

• #3 Dylan vs #6 Jacob
• #4 Bruce vs #5 Dan

The winner of Dylan-Jacob will face Bob next week, and the winner of Bruce-Dan will face Zach.

How We Got Here

Here I’ll summarize the entire PVP “regular season” seeding for the playoffs.

Luck

I previously posted a PVP luck analysis, and since then the trend has stayed mostly the same. I am the luckiest, while Bob and Jacob are the unluckiest. You can see the expected records for each player here:

The only swing with luck is my +2 relative to Dylan. With a 1-game lead, that luck would flip the Orange pod lead and give Dylan the bye. Bob’s bad luck ultimately doesn’t matter, as it only pushes him to #2 overall, and he still won his pod, so he still gets the bye. Likewise, Jacob’s bad luck only pushes him ahead of the current 3-player tie at 3-7, so it is a difference in seeding but he’s still playing in week 11.

Closest Games

We did have several very close matchups between players. The top 5 are listed in the table below.

Given the 3-way tie for 4-6, several of those are very impactful. None of the matchups involving Bob, Dylan, or Zach mattered on their own; both of those, if flipped, would not have changed the standings.

Player vs Player Drill Down

Overall, we had 8 sweeps and 7 splits. Dylan only split 1 series, while winning 3 sweeps and losing another. Bruce was the inverse of Dylan, losing 3 sweeps and splitting a series, but sweeping one. The Crocketts all split the season, with each player going 1-1 against each of the others.

Records are from the perspective of the row against the column

Week 10: What Happened?

Jacob ended week 10 with negative points. He had the most unlucky week of the year, probably ever, and possibly one of the unluckiest weeks possible.

He had 0 passes, so 16 games. Of those, SMU (+17 ATS), Tennessee (+21), and Baylor (+1) covered. Those 39 points were dwarfed by -47 ATS from Tulane alone. Three separate games were at least -21 against the spread.

Overall, his teams were -143.5 ATS, the worst of the week by 90 points, and the worst of the season. The only larger ATS difference in absolute terms was Zach’s +146.8 from week 1, which was of course boosted by several FCS blowouts.

Commissioner’s Notes

We’ve made it to week 9; 2/3 of the season is done and the playoff picture is nearly set. I didn’t watch a lot on account of the great fall weather and the UT bye week, so I won’t have a lot to say here except to recount where the standings leave us and preview the playoffs.

Week 10 Matchups

This is our last week of regularly scheduled PVP matchups. After this we will go into the playoffs.

• Bob (5-4) v Bruce (3-6)
• Dan (3-6) v Zach (7-2)
• Dylan (6-3) v Jacob (3-6)

Playoff Picture

As of this week, the top 3 are set: I have a 1-game lead over Dylan with the tiebreaker advantage for the Orange pod bye, Bob has a 2-game lead over Dan and Bruce for the White pod bye, I have a 2-game lead over Bob for the overall #1, and Dylan has a 3-game lead on the rest of the pack, so he gets the #3 spot as the highest-ranked wild card.

For the remaining 3 players, Bruce, Dan, and Jacob are tied and none of them play each other, so it could very well come down to tiebreakers. The tiebreakers that can decide this are already set based on previous weeks, so we can list out all the scenarios:

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head record among all players who are tied. In a 3-way tie, Bruce is 3-1, Dan 2-2, and Jacob 1-3, so Bruce wins. In paired ties, Bruce beats Jacob because he swept him, and Dan beats both of them because he split with both but has the higher margin against either.

Games of the Week

• Tuesday: Buffalo @ Miami (OH). These teams are tied, only a game behind 1st and half a game behind 2nd, so they need this one for the conference standings. Unfortunately for them, the other game tonight is first-place Ohio playing last-place Akron, so the loser of Buffalo/Miami is going to be 2 games back with 3 games remaining.

• Wednesday: Central Michigan @ Eastern Michigan, which isn’t a great game, but the others are terrible. Both of these teams have 5 losses, so if bowl games still matter, this is important for both of them to have a chance at bowl eligibility.

• Thursday: James Madison @ Southern Miss, which should be a blowout, but so should JMU’s last 2 weeks.

• Friday: Virginia Tech @ SMU. Virginia Tech has been inconsistent, but so has SMU, and both are a little outside the ACC title hunt but could still conceivably make it.

• Saturday Noon: BYU @ Utah, by far the biggest game of the week. A major rivalry, the top two teams in the conference, and major playoff implications.

• Saturday Afternoon: Alabama @ LSU. Given their remaining schedule, it’s unlikely Alabama will drop another game (@ Vandy, vs UTC, vs Auburn), while it’s very likely that LSU will drop another game (vs Texas, @ UT, @ Arkansas). A win plus not choking will basically guarantee Alabama a playoff spot at 10-2, while a loss would nearly eliminate LSU as-is, and another loss would absolutely do it.

• Saturday Primetime: Miami @ ND. Both of these teams are a bit shakier than their combined 15-1 record might indicate, but this is still a huge matchup.

• Saturday Late Night: either Texas State @ Oregon State or Wyoming @ UNLV. Both games feature teams fighting for a distant second behind Boise State and New Mexico in their conferences, but all 4 teams in these matchups are playing for conference championship berths.

Yet Another Discussion of Luck

I have on numerous occasions written about the luck some of us are getting, so here I’ll take a brief look at how the football gods have decided to reward Bob at the expense of the rest of us.

The top 3 are gaining ground on the pack, as indicated by our clinching of playoff spots, but within that top 3, Bob has had a tremendous run over the past 3 weeks. Based on our lineups, this should have been an extremely close matchup: the projected points based on pre-game spreads would have Dylan at the lowest, +419, followed by me at +559 and Bob at +568. The outcome has been very different from that, as you can see here:

Bob has gained 176 points on me (vs an expected 9) and 270 on Dylan (vs an expected 149); he’s +143 ATS, which is the equivalent of 1 field goal per game for every spot for all 3 weeks. And because he’s finished 1st among the 3 of us all 3 weeks, he’s gaining ground in match play while we’re splitting the match play points and pod-winner bonuses.

And he may try to pull the sympathy card and lament that his one loss in that span came when he finished 2nd in the week and only lost to the overall winner, Jacob. Don’t be fooled: he’s already clinched his pod’s bye, so it doesn’t matter for playoff standings, and that loss meant that Jacob took the Orange pod winner’s bonus point, which helps him against me and Dylan.

In short, I hate this game and I hate his luck.